Yesterday, the Metropolitan Transit Authority passed new conduct rules and penalties for subway riders, adding them to an already extensive list. It reminds me of those obscure laws that no one follows, much less knows anything about.
The MTA kept in place an existing ban on open containers (of any beverage, not just malt liquor) and approved a new $25 fine on the activity. The newly adopted rules include a ban on moving between subway cars and taking up more than one seat.
The beverage fine has got folks in an tizzy, rightfully so I think, because it affects those law-abiding citizens who enjoy coffee during their morning commute or water on a hot day, not to mention those who appear to be enjoying a full picnic lunch from the confine of their seat.
The moving-between-cars one is a mixed blessing. Sometimes it’s a relief to escape a crowded car or one that has no heat in winter, no air conditioning in the summer or a mysterious odor. Then again, as every New Yorker knows, most of the time when someone’s switching cars, it’s a beggar or street musician making the rounds, so maybe this rule is a disguised attempt to harass these sores on society’s ass. (That three-piece harmonizing mariachi band that occasionally pops up on the 1 train is exempt from my generalization.)
The one-seat rule will be tough to enforce because of the fat, the burly and the sleepy, not to mention the Surly Man standard of sitting with legs splayed wide enough that you could easily fit one of those plastic children’s wading pools in there.
It’s laughable the MTA would waste time and money formulating these rules, as they’ll likely be loosely enforced—so far this year, for instance, only about 30 tickets have been issued for the beverage ban, according to NY1. Also, riders tend to ignore even the rules that are posted, much less the ones only in the books. We’re not supposed to lean on the subway doors, but we do, and we happily hog the seats labeled as reserved for the handicapped and infirm.
But New Yorkers are keeping an eye on the MTA. Last summer, it tried to sneak in a ban of photography on New York trains, cities and buses, as well as in the stations, which would have dissolved some beautiful sites and a fun passtime. In this case, the photographic, civil liberty-lovin’ and blogging communities raised holy hell and the proposal was dropped. Now let them get to work on that beverage ban.